Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Monday 28th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 72, the wording of which, as the Committee will note, is similar to that used by my noble friend Lady Greengross in her Amendment 71. I apologise to the Committee if it, quite rightly, thinks that I am being a bit military in my approach to Part 3 of the Bill. I am doing so because, in my experience, things work much better if they are corralled into an overall strategy.

As I mentioned earlier in our proceedings, the Bill is, or ought to be, all about child development, the heart of that being Clause 19(d), which refers to, “the need to support” every child or young person,

“and his or her parent … in order to facilitate the development … and to help him or her achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes”.

The key word in this is “development”. The current absence of a Minister for child development was the reason for my earlier question to the Minister about who was responsible, and therefore accountable, for overseeing the development of every child in the country. This concern arises from my view that the only raw material that every nation has in common is its people, so woe betide it if it does not do everything that it can to identify, nurture and develop the talents of all its people. If it does not, it has only itself to blame if it fails.

The absence of any apparent child development strategy is doubly disappointing. A number of recent initiatives seemed to suggest that the development of every child was becoming the Government’s default aim. For example, the introduction of an early years foundation stage in every child’s life, concluding with an assessment, appears to be a sensible way to enable entry to a 0 to 25 pathway. During our work on the link between social disadvantage and speech, language and communication needs, the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties, which I chair, was shown four other sub-pathways that were being worked on by the Department for Education, the Department of Health and others. One covered pre-birth and the first few months of life, the second up to and including primary school, the third roughly secondary school and transition into adulthood, and the fourth was for those at risk of becoming involved with the criminal justice system. Those seemed entirely sensible and appropriate because they pulled in all the players in those processes. I should therefore be very grateful if the Minister would let me know what the current status of these four pathways is and their relationship to the 0 to 25 pathway proposed for those with special educational needs.

Logic suggests that the early years foundation stage assessments should be turned into individual health, education and care plans and 0 to 25 pathways for everyone. Default education, health and care plans for the 81.2% of children who do not need help along the way, unlike the 2.8% on statements and the 16% on school action or school action plus plans, could merely be progression through the educational system, but it would be a plan. However, the Bill as presented, instead of seizing a priceless opportunity to bring order and logic into a system that requires the co-operation and joint working of so many different ministries and agencies, by laying down a default position and then highlighting how individual necessary alternatives are to be identified and delivered, does not contain the necessary strategy and leaves a number of key requirements unresolved. These include further assessments at various stages along a pathway to identify changes of need and oversight of the whole process.

Amendment 72, about which I am extremely grateful for the detailed legal advice of David Wolfe QC, focuses on one important part of special educational provision, as well as trying to seal a potential crack in the presumed strategy. The importance of speech and language therapy was highlighted for me when, as Chief Inspector of Prisons, I was wondering what could be done with and for the more than 60% of young offenders who were found to have speech, language and communication needs. If only those needs had been identified and challenged earlier in their lives, they might never have truanted or been evicted from school, or ended up in young offender institutions. Luckily, Lady Helen Hamlyn funded a two-year trial of putting a speech and language therapist into each of two young offender institutions. The two governors of these institutions were saying, within a week of the therapists’ arrival, that they did not how they had managed before they came along.

To cut a long story short, everyone agreed how invaluable their contribution was, because at last all young offenders could communicate with education, healthcare and disciplinary staffs, which enabled individual plans to be made. Despite this, I could not persuade either the Home Secretary or the Secretary of State for Education to pay for them, because speech and language therapists belonged to the Department of Health, whose Secretary of State in turn refused to pay, on the grounds that all such funding was delegated to what were then called primary care trusts. The development of thousands of children has gone by default, and the same could happen to millions more if speech and language therapy is not enshrined in government child development plans.

Therefore, I welcome the Government’s apparent intention to maintain the existing position, confirmed in both case law and the current Special Educational Needs Code of Practice from 2001, which, in Chapter 8.49, says that,

“since communication is so fundamental in learning and progression, addressing speech and language impairment should normally be recorded as educational provision, unless there are exceptional reasons for not doing so”.

The new, separate definition of healthcare provision in the Bill creates a risk that speech and language therapists, because they are provided by the NHS to address this impairment, could be reclassified as healthcare provision, rather than, as currently, educational provision.

This raises two problems. First, parents could lose their right of appeal to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal. Secondly, healthcare provision does not have to be included in an educational health and care plan unless it is, to quote the Bill, “reasonably” required, which implies that it could be left out on cost grounds. Although Clause 21(5) mitigates the risk of reclassification, it does not remove it, and the rewording that I am proposing in Amendment 72 is designed to ensure unambiguously that the existing classification of speech and language therapy as educational provision is maintained. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, our Amendment 73 is in this group, and it has the same intent as that of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. We have just gone about it in a slightly different way. The issue is one of what should be classified as special educational provision. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, quite rightly pointed out, this is important because, by its nature, this determines what issues parents can take to appeal, and we should make that classification as broad as we possibly can.

We have debated before in Grand Committee how broad a definition we are going to apply to special educational needs, and that we believe that a whole tranche of disabled children are not classified and included in that. This issue touches on that somewhat as well. As we said at the time, it is important to get a standard classification of special educational needs and disability included throughout the Bill. We have not tabled amendments to this clause to take that on board; however, earlier clauses ought to clarify it more clearly.

Clause 21(5) sets out that healthcare provision and social care provision can be classified as special educational needs if they are,

“made wholly or mainly for the purposes of … education or training”.

However, according to many in the sector, backed up by the legal advice that we have received, there is a concern that the new definition of the phrase “wholly or mainly” sets a higher threshold than that which exists. We have heard from, among others, David Wolfe QC, the adviser mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. That is why our amendment would remove “wholly or mainly” from the clause.

The initial draft of the Bill did not include a requirement for educational provision to be wholly or mainly for educational purposes. It stated that anything provided by the health authority was health provision and that anything provided by social care was, similarly, social care provision and therefore not enforceable or appealable to the tribunal. The new wording was introduced as a result of opposition to the initial draft but we still do not feel that it deals with this problem. I think the Minister will be aware that there is considerable concern about this issue, particularly around therapies such as those for speech and language, which may be classed simply as health service provision under this clause and therefore, apart from anything else, not appealable.

In addition, we have also received the following legal advice:

“Following case law dating back to 1989 the general position has been that any provision which is directly related to an educational need can be classified as educational or medical and it is for the tribunal to decide. Guidance has been given that speech and language therapy will normally be considered educational because of its importance in communication, whereas other therapies such as occupational therapy vary according to the type of difficulty the child has and how far the therapy relates to an educational objective. Tribunals have consistently held that where a provision has a beneficial educational aspect, and is directly related to the child’s educational needs, it can be described as educational provision and specified in the statement. This aspect needs to be set out in the current bill if parents’ rights are not to be eroded. The current wording set a higher bar and reduces the rights of the child and parent”.

This issue was raised briefly in the Commons by the Conservative MP Robert Buckland. At the time, the Minister there replied that,

“the clause maintains the existing right of appeal to the tribunal for special educational provision so that parents will not lose their current protections”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children and Families Bill Committee, 19/3/13; col. 372.]

However, this is not what the experts are telling us, so it would be extremely helpful if the Minister could clarify this and work with us to find alternative wording which would ensure that we are not raising the bar and eroding parents’ rights. In his letter to us following Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Nash, wrote that,

“the Government recognises the concerns and is looking for ways to address them”.

I would be really grateful if he could tell us how far he has got in looking at ways to address these concerns, and whether he would now be prepared to find an alternative form of wording to address this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I am covering for my colleague here, so I am doing a double act.

Amendment 75 proposes a new clause, which very much picks up on the point that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made in the debate about the importance of early identification. We believe that identifying and supporting children with SEN as early as possible is the most important factor in improving their outcomes, so our new clause would put early years area SENCOs on a statutory basis, like school SENCOs. It would require local authorities to employ enough of them to support all the identified needs locally. Clause 22 requires local authorities to seek to identify children and young people in their area who may have SEN. Our amendment would insert “as early as possible”, which again echoes the points we made in the earlier debate.

The professionals who work with children have a crucial role to play as the first educators with whom those children come into contact. A number of issues such as speech and communication problems, developmental delay, behavioural issues and literacy problems can be better addressed by having a good quality early years provider, meaning that children start school in a much better position than they otherwise would have. Fewer resources would then be required in later years, so the case is well made and cost effective.

However, the early years workforce is typically the least qualified in the education sector, while cuts to local authority budgets have meant that councils have cut their training budgets for early years staff by 40% since the election, resulting in many cutting back on the early years area SENCOs that they previously employed to provide advice and training in early years settings. Yet the support that they provide is now needed more than ever. A recent Communication Trust project, Talk of the Town, evidenced that, across a federation of schools, children and young people’s speech and language needs were underidentified by an average of 40%. The Communication Trust says that it,

“remains concerned over how the Bill will ensure that the mechanisms for identification will work in practice across all educational phases and also on local authorities’ ability to identify needs as early as possible, and to respond to these needs”.

The NDCS, the RNIB and Sense are also concerned that overall proposals do not place sufficient emphasis on the importance of early years support for children with sensory impairments and their families.

Labour tabled these amendments in the Commons. At the time, the Minister said that he would reflect on whether and, if so, how some of the good practice of area SENCOs could be reflected in the code of practice. As I have just hinted, I have only just acquired this brief this afternoon. I have looked at the code of practice and I am struggling to see where that might be. There is certainly reference to maintained nurseries having a role, but nothing that spells out the role that area SENCOs can have with the more diverse group of early years providers. I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say about that, but I hope that we can agree that more can be done within the Bill and the code to emphasise the importance of these early years area SENCOs. I beg to move.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I rise to support this amendment, and to speak to Amendments 79, 108, 116, 128 and 238. I am glad that the noble Baroness mentioned the importance of assessment and intervention as early as possible, particularly for this area. I was very struck last Wednesday, at a meeting with the Minister, when he confirmed that only just over 10 years ago, 80% of communication between young people was verbal and 20% electronic. That is now reversed, with 80% being electronic and only 20% verbal. We need verbal communication above all to enable us to engage not just with teachers but healthcare workers, family, friends and ultimately with employers and customers. If we are to enable our children to live in today’s world, it is crucial for them to communicate with each other and for those who have to engage with them to help.

Amendment 79 requires schools and registered early years settings to identify special educational needs while offering guidance on how to do so. This is very important because, as we discovered when doing the report, which I have mentioned several times, the health visitors who were doing the early assessment in Northern Ireland were extremely glad that they had been trained to do so by speech and language therapists—not that they could offer therapy, but at least they knew what signs to look for to alert them that somebody had a problem. This is very important, and it is a lesson that should be applied right across the country.

Amendment 108 extends local offers to include access to services for children who are educated in non-maintained early years settings. It should not be restricted only to those with EHC plans, which, for the vast majority of people who have children with speech, language and communication needs, do not make them eligible for any additional support. That is wrong. The people with speech, language and communication needs do need support to enable them to engage. It is not just for those on EHC plans, which, as we know, is a small proportion of the whole.

Amendment 116 requires local authorities to inform parents of what special educational needs and local office support is available to children educated in non-maintained early years settings. This is again something that should not be left to chance because, as we know, there is a vast variety of provision and a vast amount that parents do not know or understand and with which they need help. Somebody has to co-ordinate the giving out of that advice, which suggests that local authorities have a role to play.

Amendment 128 makes local authorities responsible for special educational needs provision to those who have them identified in private, voluntary and independent early years settings, and for establishing the necessary mechanisms to enable and ensure that both identification and provision are available. All those may seem very much the same, but what they are saying collectively is that there is a duty here for the local authorities to make certain that identification and provision are available for all children in the local authority area, whether they are in mainstream or PVI settings. We must not let that go by default.

Amendment 238 highlights something that else that is lacking and is not clear from the Bill. Schedule 4 to the Bill amends the Childcare Act 2006 to require the registration of childminder agencies and certain childcare providers on childcare registers. However, the Bill is currently unclear about the position regarding private, voluntary and independent providers. As nearly 80% of the early years providers come from the private, voluntary or independent sector, this seems to be a gap that needs to be filled. We must ensure that everyone is covered. I am not simply saying that there is a gap; I am trying to suggest that there may be a way out of this. I suggest that all childminder agencies should be required to employ a SENCO, and that all non-maintained providers—that is, all the PVI providers—should be required to register with one of these childminder agencies. In that way, the SENCO can relieve the PVI of what the Government have said that they do not want to do, which is to belabour it with too much bureaucratic work that it has to do. A SENCO with the same status as the others would be able to act as a bridge between these 80% of providers and the local authorities to ensure that every child is covered.

Again, this may sound complicated, but I say to the Minister that the Communication Trust and others, who have thought this through and drafted this amendment, which I am very pleased to put forward for them, are very happy to engage with officials to discuss how this might be provided for, and to make certain that the gap is covered. The Communication Trust includes those working in the area now, and we have contacts with the Local Government Association, which I know would be very happy to contribute.